Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

Date of Birth:

November 19, 1926

Date of Death:

December 7, 2006

Nationality:

American

Quote count:

11

Times favorited:

1

Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick was an American ambassador and an ardent anticommunist. After serving as Ronald Reagan's foreign policy adviser in his 1980 campaign and later in his Cabinet, the longtime Democrat-turned-Republican was nominated as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and became the first woman to hold this position.

She is famous for her "Kirkpatrick Doctrine," which advocated U.S. support of anticommunist governments around the world, including authoritarian dictatorships, if they were not totalitarian and went along with Washington's aims-- believing they could be led into democracy by example. She wrote, "Traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies."